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Tuesday Strip 897 3/25/03 Faith Robbins loved California. She stood next to the rental teal/gray Accent, hands on her hips, waiting for Jake to come out of the airport terminal with Kelly Rose, fresh from New York. The sun was shining and a warm, pleasant breeze was blowing slightly. She was loving California. A place where it never got too cold, never snowed, barely rained. Palm trees, white sand, and even more palm trees. No jacket required. Everyone was tan and blond. No one was ugly. Paradise found. She shifted her weight, what was taking them so long? Jake had been very late coming to bed, like, 4am late. She was surprised that he was able to get up. Since they got to San Diego, she could not remember more than one day where they had woken up before noon. It was okay, though, after what had happened to end the junior year, sleep was a good friend. She saw them coming out of the terminal, how could she not spot the contrast? Jake, in his wife beater (she had begged him not to wear it, he thought she was kidding), long blond hair, and next to him, Kelly, in his black tee shirt, smoke almost literally coming from his head. She could tell Kelly looked kind of sad. It was the way he was walking, like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Jake waved and she smiled. Maybe asking Kelly to come out here was not a good idea. The other day, Trish had called her and told her that Kelly and her had broken it off. Trish was very upset, crying, not able to really tell the whole story. The conversation only lasted ten minutes. She had not heard from her again. Kelly had called the next day, saying he was coming to California, but it was only just him. He didn’t offer anything more. “Hey Kelly!” Faith said, walking over and giving him a hug. He smelled like stale smoke with a slight undercurrent of body odor. Long trip smell. “How was your flight?” “Wasn’t bad. You know you can’t smoke on planes anymore? Who would thunk it?” “He used that joke on me, too, Faith.” “Was it funnier then?” “Not really.” “I really missed you two jokers. So where the fuck is the ocean?” Jake popped open the trunk of the car and Kelly threw his bag in. Jake pointed south. From the airport, the ocean was just south of the downtown area of San Diego. There was a slight haze, the city looked much further away then it was. Kelly found it, like any other city you go to except New York, very unimpressive. Kelly grunted. “So that’s San Diego?” Jake smiled. “Yeah, small, right? When Mitch picked us up, I was all like, is that really a city? It’s like ten square blocks and a baseball stadium. It kinda sucks.” “I like it.” “So, again, the ocean?” “It’s south. But we’re not going south, we’re going north, my uncle is making lunch for us.” “I don’t like your uncles.” “This is my real uncle.” “Still.” Kelly opened the backdoor and sulked in. Faith shot a glance over to Jake, Jake just shrugged. Faith felt a little uncomfortable, was he going to be like this the whole time he was there? --- “So, what happened with you and Trish, Kelly?” The mood in the car, until that point, was bad. Faith didn’t know why she said it. Actually, it’s been killing her the last two days not knowing what happened between her two good friends. Their relationship was like a sister relationship to Jake and hers, if they fell apart, which she though would never happen, that what would the future hold for her and Jake? It was really killing her. She just had to know, even if it meant making grumpy Kelly even grumpier. “What?” It was as if someone had stolen Kelly’s voice. He wasn’t expecting that. “Look, Kelly, I’m sorry, but, fuck, man, you look like crap. And I can’t help but to think it had something to do with Trish. The best thing for you right now is to just, I dunno, let it off your chest. You’ll feel better. I’m sure of it. Don’t you agree, Jake?” She looked over at Jake. His face had gone white. He made a sort of throaty grunt and made a gesture so insignificant Faith knew it was a nod. He never once looked at her or Kelly, just the road ahead. It was still another twenty to Encinitas. She turned herself around and looked at Kelly. He was hunched over, squirmy, maybe even nervous. She smiled again to him. “If you can’t tell us, Kelly, then who can you tell?” He looked at her, his eyes were getting dark. It reminded her of what had happened back in May. It was only two months ago. It seemed like forever. She didn’t like seeing Kelly when his eyes got dark, he looked scary, almost evil. You couldn’t read him then. Trish said that when they finally did get intimate, his eyes went dark. Faith thought that was horrible. When she and Jake finally have sex, she hoped that his eyes didn’t black out on her. How messed up is that? “Um…” Breakthrough. She had him. More stroking. “Look. You seem destroyed, Kelly, let us help you. Really. We’re friends. We won’t judge you.” “I… I… okay, Faith, listen. What happened between me and Trish? A lot of good things, okay, but also lot of shit. My shit, her shit, there was a lot of shit. I want to say I loved her and she loved me back, and it was probably true, but, sometimes people just have shit. Get?” “Sort of.” “That’s a lot of shit.” Jake tried to help out. Faith told him to shush. Kelly leaned back. His eyes were back to being normal. “I don’t want to get into it. I know you’re not going to judge me, or her, I know that. But I’m still not going to get into it, besides saying, we had our shit.” “Okay. I’ll respect that. Do you feel better?” “Honestly?” “Sure.” “I feel a lot worse. Heh. I had some bad food on the plane, that’s why I look like shit now.” “What?” “It was this awful chicken beef concoction. My stomach is killing me. But thanks for opening the Trish wound, Faith, it was very nice of you to help me get that off my chest.” to be continued Here’s a quick note from Mike, long lost creator: This counts as Tuesday. Later tonight or tomorrow Wednesday, and then sometime Thursday will update right under this text. On Friday I go back to drawing, but as a lot of you see, drawing has been harder then ever for me, which is why the text a good portion of this week. And I needed to jump start this particular bit of the story, Chasing Kelly Rose lasts a very, very long time. Consider this the prologue, but it’s not labeled as such because having a new prologue in a middle of a story seemed a little, I dunno, redundant. But it’s still a prologue. If anyone is having a hard time following timelines and what’s real, here’s a quick recap. The present time for Jake and co. is July, they’re in California with Jake’s uncle (as seen during the holidaze last year). Jake is, at the same time, telling the story of what occurred prior. This will continue this Friday with #900. Still confused? Go read Genre City. Then come back. Isn’t it easier now? ?    
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EVERYTHING JAKE is TM & (C) 2000-2011 by Mike Rosenzweig. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
